Rebuilding The employer-employee compact

The employee relationship is broken, leaving managers with an seemingly impossible dilemma: You can’t afford to treat employees like family (which they never were). But you can’t build a lasting, innovative business when every employee acts like a free agent.

High tech companies in Silicon Valley have found a way around this dilemma, and their solution applies to any industry. The answer is to stop thinking of employees as family or free agents, and start thinking of them as allies.

The alliance is a two-way relationshipthat lets company and employee work together toward common goals, even when some of their interests differ.